Search - The Enrico Rava Quartet: Live in Montreal on DVD

A great jazz video

Larry L. Looney | Austin, Texas USA | 12/27/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I've listened to Enrico Rava's work on and off for 30 years or so now - he never fails to amaze me with his energy, creativity and sense of melody. Two of his most recent albums - a return to ECM Records with EASY LIVING (2004) and TATI (2005) - illustrate nicely that he's lost absolutely none of his musical chops with time. This video, a document of his performance at the 2005 Montreal Jazz Festival, further verifies that.

The only player along from EASY LIVING is Gianluca Petrella (trombone), who is simply amazing on his instrument - but the other players Rava has brought together for this performance are excellent. Andrea Pozza does wonders on piano, and guest alto saxophonist Francesco Cafiso is stunning. I had to do a little digging to find the names of the bassist (Enzo Pietropaoli) and drummer (Fabrizio Sferra), both of whom have great reputations in Europe (having played with Italian pianist Danilo Rea, for example) - I didn't want to trust my ears to get the Italian names right, hearing Rava introduce them on stage -their work here shows that they're incredibly able sidemen, both is a supporting role and in the solos they take.

Rava leads the group masterfully but gently through a program mostly made up of his own compositions - `Algir Dalbughi', `Sand' (given two treatments here), `Traveling night' and `Hornette and the drums thing' are all from EASY LIVING; `Certi Angoli Segreti' is the title track from a 1998 release; and the humorously (but honestly) titled `Happiness is to win a big prize in cash' is from Rava's FULL OF LIFE release (2004). The performance is filled out with great renditions of the jazz classics `Nature boy' and `Poinciana'. On the latter, Rava encourages the audience to wordless sing along - and when they get their melody and courage, he and Petrella play off of it beautifully.

At one point, during a nice solo by the bassist, Rava gathers Petrella and sax player Cafiso into a tight circle, away from the microphones, and leads them in some really tasty low-key riffing. You can tell these guys are having a great time with each other - the joy lifts the music to levels that the technical prowess alone could never reach.

The video and audio quality in this release is first rate - and clocking in at slightly less than two hours, there's a lot of great music here. Rava is a master - of his instrument, of his compositional skills, and of that most difficult and elusive `job' of being a great leader. He can shine like the sun, but you can tell he loves to see his bandmates have their moment in the spotlight as well.

This is a great package -and I can recommend it very highly indeed.
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